English mystery
Description
Read MoreVocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Just check it out. That's all I'm asking. I already knew what I'd find, but I didn't feel like arguing with someone half my age. I've long ago resigned myself to the fact that my editors and bosses were all younger than me. Figured they knew more than I did and could dismiss anything I brought to the table experience didn't matter anymore in the digital age. Sure. I told him the national editor wasn't a bad guy. He was just young. He hadn't seen much of anything. His version of what happened to change. The world was tightly wrapped inside the fungible content of the dozen digital news sites. He scanned each morning on his ride into the paper. It's a story. Trust me, you'll see. He insisted when I have to write. My editor smiled. Only if your enormous ego allows it and I have to take pictures a few. That's all I'm asking. I closed my eyes briefly resigned to my fate. Fine. I'll go and make sure you get approvals for the pictures. Gee I'd almost forgotten about that. I did penned maybe right after I ask them their names because I need to quote them. Something like that. He bobbed his head once as if checking an internal box, then moved on to whatever was next in his day. The story was ridiculous. I knew it. My editor likely knew it but it was precisely the sort of story that attracted traffic. Just not any I wanted to spend time on. There was a coffee shop across the street from the Eisenhower building at the northwest corner of the White House Complex, not the typical coffee place where young kids took their laptops and camped out all day. No, it was where the K street lobbyists cooled their heels with clients before heading over to the White House. One of the many digital media sites my editor consumed voraciously had posted a breathless piece about how important people gathered at this particular shop to talk in hushed tones about the great work of national political theater. Washington was above all else. A government town where significant debates were supposed to take place daily. And my editor surmised those moments incubated in this coffee shop before moving across the street into the light of day at White House meetings except it wasn't true. Yes, lobbyists gathered here sometimes conspiring with White House aides before important meetings, but the lobbyists were paid well for their access to the White House and the aides who occasionally visited were only a few years removed from the last presidential campaign. Neither came to brainstorm theories or hatch programs for political change. The shop was simply the easiest place to kill time until they had to stand in line for a clearance into the White House. I met people there on a number of occasions, nothing of substance was discussed. The risk of being overheard was too great. We talked about the Nationals, the Caps NFL football, the latest stupid thing, a celebrity center or did or whatever topic was trending on social media. You sipped your coffee and then walked across the street. But the facts didn't matter. The appearance of power was alluring, especially in Washington. What my editor wanted was a story about who was in the shop where they were going across the street and what they might be talking about there with luck, I'd run into at least one interesting tidbit not already beaten to death by politico axios or punch bowl. It would be forgotten almost the moment its electrons passed through cyberspace but would attract eyeballs. And 1/20 of the advertising, a similar story once attracted when it graced the printed page of a paper. But I do as I was told, I'd go there, take a couple of pictures, ask a few questions and then do my best to write something that didn't take yet another piece of my soul with it into the digital abyss. My cell phone buzzed a text from an unknown mobile number with a 202 area code read. Go here first get your head out of the clown make like Clark Canton fly by.